Give and Take
by zycroft
Summary: Wilson needs to learn to love himself. Begins at 3x05 "Fools for Love" and follows an alternate time-line beyond 3x22 "Resignation." Contains angst and a House-ian brand of not-quite-fluff. Written for the Merry Month of Masturbation at LJ.


_The dialogue in the opening lines is verbatim from "Fools for Love," and House's dialogue in paragraph 30 is verbatim from "Resignation." House/Wilson with goggles at the ready._

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"You sprinted through 3 bad marriages, into an affair with a dying patient - now a naughty nurse? How many more failed relationships are we both going to have to deal with before you learn to love yourself? And I mean that in a literal way. "

"It's amazing how you can not only know it's a relationship but that it's a bad relationship based on nothing but... nothing. "

"I know you," House responded.

"I'm not with her, not even trying."

"You're lying to me; that's interesting," House called to Wilson's retreating back.

"Well, as long as it's interesting," and Wilson went into his office.

As he settled in at his desk, Wilson kept hearing House's voice in his head. "You're lying to me." Well, of course he was, and Wilson would be an idiot to think he could keep it hidden from House forever. He hadn't figured House would discover he had a secret this soon and he just counted himself lucky that House was wrong about what he was lying about.

His day was typical; House was House, Wilson's patients each got personalised care, the stack of files on his desk got a little taller, and then he was back in his hotel room.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, he sat down at the desk and booted up his laptop. He fought with his demons as he checked his email, started to give in, then closed the lid and turned his attention to the TV.

An hour later he could practically hear the computer calling out to him, so he grabbed a jacket and headed out into the night.

House's assessment of him not loving himself was too close to the truth, but the literal translation was a bit off. Self-loathing was the more commonly used phrase.

Her name was…well, he forgot her name. But she'd been just what he needed that night.

As the week dragged on, the lure of his laptop grew stronger. On Friday, he went straight to House's after work and spent the night sniping back and forth over Chinese takeout and bad movies. He kept his drinking to a minimum; not only did he worry about dropping his guard around House, but he didn't want to wake up in pain after another torturous night sleeping on House's couch.

On Saturday, he ran errands and organised his clothes hanging on the rail the hotel tried to pass off as a closet. He went to bed early and had a fitful night's sleep wrought with dreams.

On Sunday, he was back at House's to watch a Hitchcock marathon. The beer flowed liberally, but he kept his guard in tact.

As the days turned into weeks, Wilson felt the tension House's words had created easing. At the same time, the tension of avoidance was building.

He met a Katie and a Tabatha and an Elaine. He met a Josie, too, but he wasn't sure he should count that one since he hadn't bothered taking her back to the hotel after her expert hand job under table.

He fell in love with all of them and House's words echoed through every encounter. "How many more failed relationships are we both going to have to deal with before you learn to love yourself?"

It had been nine weeks and 4 days before he broke.

He opened the laptop and it's possible that he had fooled himself into thinking it was for some innocuous purpose, but deep down he knew the truth.

He loved videos in which the men played sports before. Football, basketball, volleyball…it didn't matter. One memorable flick he'd seen in college started off with a game of badminton.

This time, he hadn't even made it halfway through the obligatory shower room blowjob.

He was drowning in self-disgust before he'd even tucked himself back into his pants.

Within a week, he'd met Natalie and when House found out, Wilson went through the motions of defending the relationship.

When Natalie got bored, Wilson went back to the hotel rather than face House.

When Wilson caved in again, exactly sixteen weeks later, he put forth the effort to watch three videos before touching himself. He made it through two and watched the third in a post-orgasmic haze.

In the following weeks, his morning ritual was interrupted by images of those videos.

When he met Anita, he fell in love before the end of their first conversation. When they got back to the hotel, he proved it to her.

After the Tritter debacle and House's cancer scam, Wilson decided to get help. The anti-depressants' most immediate effect was on his libido. They were otherwise useless.

His raw honesty about why he was taking them was completely missed by House. "They're anti-depressants, not anti-annoyanceants," he'd said. Nevermind that Wilson was taking them to cope with House's constant prodding and the resultant paranoia, insomnia, and hypersensitive emotions.

When House learned his secret, he'd laughed. Wilson had waited for this day for a long time, had known he would laugh, had heard it a thousand times in advance. He'd known it would be an evil laugh rife with malice and contempt. The absence of those two traits was completely missed by Wilson.

When House asked if Wilson was finally ready to start loving himself, Wilson didn't answer. He was too shocked by the realisation that House didn't hate him.

He couldn't tell his family, but that had never been an issue.

House's acceptance gave him the peace of mind he needed, and when he and Chris had their one-year anniversary, House threw the raunchiest party New Jersey had ever hosted.

It took Chris twice as long as any of his wives to grow so resentful of House's presence in their lives that he left Wilson.

House's couch hadn't grown comfortable since he'd last slept there. After three weeks, he stopped noticing the back pain.

Five weeks after Chris left, Wilson walked into House's apartment to find a male hooker waiting for him.

After the third hooker, House stopped avoiding the apartment on Friday nights and read in his room until the bolt of the front door sounded the all-clear.

House watched the eighth time Wilson had sex on the couch. The male body did nothing for him, but the sheer animal drive turned him on. The sweat and hormones soaked into his skin as he watched Wilson give in to his desires. He couldn't stop himself from stroking along to their pace any more than Wilson could have stopped driving into the yielding body bent over the couch.

When Wilson's harsh grunt signalled his impending orgasm, House moved closer to study every feature. As Wilson's eyes screw shut and his teeth bared and his head fell back to expose the taut cords of his neck, House gave in, too.


End file.
